金/钅metal and 隹 a bird compose 锥 an awl. An awl 锥 is made of metal 金/钅and it gradually gets thicker from the tip to the end ( like the shape of a bird’s beak ).
Since the semantic component of 锥 is 金, we can say 铁锥. The meaning of 锥 was originally just used as an awl and later it also could mean things with the similar shape to that of an awl such as a cone. In modern Chinese, it can also be used as a verb (to bore, prick, ), for example, 锥个眼儿 bore a hole with an awl.
Check out the radical 钅,which is a very powerful component to form characters. There are about 250 characters are in the family of 钅. Most of the proper names related to metal have the semantic component 钅.
金, a compound ideographic character of metals in general, serves as semantic component to form characters. Characters formed by the semantic component 金 express meanings related to metal, metal products, etc. 金 also serves as phonetic component. Position of 金 in a character: left, right, bottom. 金 is written as 钅when…
Since most of the Chinese characters are 形声字 phono-semantic characters, it's a major requisite to know how they are formed. Just as the name 形声字 phono-semantic characters indicates, all the phono-semantic characters are composed of semantic components and phonetic components. Let's see how they both work respectively to form characters. How…
After learning Chinese for quite a while, you should know the right route to learning characters better. The right route will make your vocabulary multiply. To get the right route to learning characters, it's required to know the property of the compound characters. A compound character can combine with its semantic…